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Sirius Black was going out of his mind. And it wasn’t happening slowly, either; Rapidly deteriorating, he was, as a matter of fact. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why , though. All he knew was it had started sometime just around the start of the school year.
Summer of 1976 had been an unusually hot one: London had still got it’s fair share of rain through August, but July had left the whole country longing for it, the grass turning an unpleasant yellow in the parks and the air shimmering above the asphalt in the streets.
Because of the weather, Sirius and James had been forced to spend most of the summer shut inside the Potter house, lying about on sofas and putting non-melting ice cubes on their foreheads. Euphemia Potter had rolled her eyes at their laziness, but had silently stocked up on ice cream and let them do as they’d pleased.
Apart from the decidedly horrid temperatures, Sirius couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that comfortable just hanging around somewhere that wasn’t Hogwarts. So, it had been a nice change.
They’d seen Peter multiple times over the summer (he’d sometimes joined them for the general lying about, and they’d biked over to the Pettigrew’s once or twice on the less rainy August days) so when the 1st of September rolled around, Sirius and James already knew he’d got a little taller since the end of June. Just like Peter and James knew that Sirius had let his hair grow a little longer than usual, and just like Sirius and Peter knew that James had talked his parents into buying him a new pair of glasses.
But none of them had seen Remus over the summer holidays: he’d been stuck up in Suffolk on his parents farm, working. All summer. In the sun. Day in, day out.
Remus Lupin showed up to platform 9¾ on September 1st, 1976, surprising them all by sporting sun-kissed skin and a face full of freckles, and Sirius couldn’t quite put his finger on why that’s where the losing of his mind started, but here he was, some two months later.
Mind decidedly lost.
It wasn’t that Sirius hadn’t already known that Remus was attractive - he wasn’t blind . He knew a good looking lad when he saw one, and Remus had always been cute-ish, even at the tender age of 11; even while scowling at Sirius and James to leave him be, wankers .
It was just that Sirius hadn’t seen Remus for a bit, was all. It was just that Sirius himself had spent the summer doing fuck-all, and had expected the same from Remus.
It was just that suddenly Remus was walking around looking like some sort of adonis, all muscled from throwing hay bales all summer and what not, and Sirius had had no time to prepare, had been caught completely off fucking guard, and now Sirius just could not stop looking at his stupid, golden skin and how it contrasted with his scars, the hair, all dark chocolate and soft looking , and-
Remus was officially in Sirius’ head and Sirius had no clue how to get him out of there.
James had not only caught on pretty quickly, fair on him, but also been completely cool about the situation, bless his heart. Sirius had half expected James to tell him off - Remus did, after all, have enough problems without a disowned Black heir pining after him. But James had only looked at Sirius biting his lip as he watched Remus leave the common room for the library one afternoon, said, “I can’t say I didn’t sort of see this coming”, and left it at that.
So that was one less issue to worry about, Sirius supposed. It seemed he’d at least be able to keep one friend at the end of all this. Even if that friend was completely bonkers, as it turned out.
“I still don’t get why you can’t just tell him,” James muttered next to him, turning a page in the book he had splayed out in front of him. “It’s not like you’re being subtle about it, anyway.”
Sirius only barely withheld from smacking the back of his head. “Oh, yeah, thanks, mate- Love that, just what I needed to hear right now, thank you.”
“I’m just saying.” James turned another page, frowned, looked at his notes, and turned the page back again. “You’re staring again.”
Sirius whipped his head around to look at him. “I’m not staring.”
“Mm. You are.”
“I’m studying, me. Reading a book. A man who’s reading cannot possibly be staring. I’ve only got two eyes, Prongs.”
James scratched a couple of sentences out on his parchment and wrote something else down next to it. “You haven’t even opened your book, though, Pads.”
Sirius glanced down. Hogwarts, a History was indeed on the table, firmly shut. Bastard. It was so terribly annoying when James turned out to be right - he could never be cool about it.
“So maybe I was staring,” Sirius said, opening the book at last. “What’s it to you?”
“It’s nothing to me.” James stifled a yawn. “Actually, that was a lie. It’s saving me hours of headaches from listening to your pining, is what it is to me.”
“You’d think that my pining - be it fictional or not - would be my headache, not yours.”
James stared up at him with a blank face. “Yes, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
Sirius pointedly ignored him. Remus was sitting at the other end of the common room, chatting quietly to Marlene McKinnon. He was moving his hands a little as they talked, telling Sirius that he was trying to explain something. Possibly it was something to do with charms: they had an essay due in a couple of days and Marlene was famously lousy at the subject, whereas Remus excelled, and that would explain why Remus wasn’t sitting with James and Sirius in the first place; he never allowed them near him while he was studying. Distracting, he called them. A tad dramatic that, Sirius thought.
As if he’d heard him, Remus chose that moment to look past Marlene and catch Sirius' eye. Even from the other side of the room, Sirius could still make out the faint smattering of freckles that were still visible across Remus’ cheeks and nose. His tan had faded somewhat since September, but his skin still contrasted a delicious light gold against his hair, which had grown longer and gone a little curly around the sides of his face.
Sirius wet his lips nervously. He didn’t even realise that Remus was still looking right at him, until Remus quirked a quizzical eyebrow. What the hell are you looking at, wanker?
Yes, Sirius, what the hell are you looking at? He shook his head quickly and smiled weakly at Remus - he was fairly certain it looked more like a pained twist of his mouth than anything else - before looking back down at Hogwarts, a History , which was still mercilessly staring up at him from the table.
Safe from Remus’ general existence, Sirius let out a huff of air and squeezed his eyes firmly shut. That kid was going to kill him.
James patted his arm absent-mindedly. “There, there. It will all be over soon.”
Sirius kept his eyes shut (could he even trust himself with his eyes open anymore? Sirius didn’t think so.), “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“I was trying to make you feel better!”
“That sounded like you were promising me a quick and pain-free death.” Sirius carefully cracked one eye open and glared it at James. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“A quick and pain-free death, are you promising me one?”
James had just opened his mouth to answer (something disappointing, Sirius was sure) when Peter damp down in the empty arm chair across from them.
“I hear we’re being proper cheerful this afternoon then, lads!” Peter noted, putting his scarf on the table in front of him. “What’s the occasion?”
James moved a little in his own chair to get more comfortable. “Oh, nothing new. Just Padfoot mooning over Moony, the usual, really.”
Peter ignored the horrified yelp Sirius let out and nodded solemnly. “Ah, so truly nothing new then. How’s the studying going?”
“Really well, I should be ready to murder Slughorn any minute now.”
“Why don’t you ask Evans for help? Isn’t she like some sort of potions genius ?”
“Nah, things are finally looking up with her, I don’t want to ruin that by telling her I completely hate her favorite subject. Besides, I think she’s been a bit stressed lately, I don’t want to pile on.”
“Oh, fairs then-”
“Oi, hey, hee-llo?!” Sirius looked furiously between James and Peter, who’d moved so briskly past the subject that they’d seemingly failed to realise the utter shambles they’d left Sirius in. “Since when is me mooning over- I mean I’m not , but- When did Peter - What the fuck, lads?”
Peter and James exchanged an amused look, before turning to Sirius with - and Sirius could appreciate this even in the spluttering state he was in - surprisingly gentle expressions.
“Sirius,” Peter started. He reached across the table and patted Sirius carefully on the knee. “The sky is blue. Are you following?”
Sirius nodded silently.
Peter smiled. “The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Remus Lupin is like, your fucking kryptonite, buddy.”
Sirius looked from Peter to James and back again, before falling forward and pressing both hands against his face and letting all the air leave his body. He shut his eyes hard enough that he could see spots, and then marveled at the fact that somehow those spots seemed to be the colour of Remus’ eyes, hair, skin.
God. Maybe Sirius was a wanker.
“Does he know ?” The words had come out barely audible, so clenched were Sirius’ teeth, but James and Peter must have been expecting the question, or they just had much better hearing than Sirius ever would’ve given them credit for, because they answered almost simultaneously.
“We don’t know.”
“Hard to say.”
Sirius sat up slowly. It felt like the ground had been swept out from underneath him. If his mind had been lost before, it was fucking reeling now - every moment he’d ever shared with Remus was flashing before his eyes, it felt. The more he thought about it, the surer he became that Remus must already… He had to have known all along. Thinking back, Sirius hadn’t known himself, but god, hindsight: twenty twenty and all that. The past two months, especially… Sirius repressed a shudder. How oblivious he’d been, and how strange that was to realise. It almost made him wonder.
What else was he feeling that he didn’t know about yet?
Sirius let his hands fall from his face. James and Peter were still looking at him with those terrible, gentle expressions that were starting to make Sirius’ skin crawl. As much as they meant to him, those two wonderful, stupid boys in front of him; finding out your secrets weren’t really secrets wasn’t that nice, as it turned out.
“I think I’ll go for a walk.” Sirius stood up. James made to go with him, but Sirius ran a hand through his hair and tugged a little before he could get up. “Alone, Prongs. I think- I think I need to think.”
Sirius only caught a little of James’ nod as he turned and walked towards the portrait to leave the common room. Walking through, he could feel Remus’ eyes on him from his corner. Sirius kept his own eyes straight ahead and willed the burning sensation to stop.
Only, it seemed it was already rooted in his heart. Sirius kept walking regardless.
Sirius didn’t stop until he was all the way out by the lake. It was a nice afternoon - sunny, very few clouds - but November had turned the air chilly enough that most students had taken to the walls of the castle for shelter. No one else was by the lake. Sirius sat down.
It was just him and the Giant Squid, now.
The ground was a little damp.
He felt a little silly.
The thing about it all was that Sirius hadn’t even thought that much about his feelings when it had only been James that knew about them. Sure, he’d been staring at Remus for a little longer than what was maybe appropriate lately, and sure, James teased him a little for it, but so what? What was a little teasing between friends- between brothers? And what was wrong with a small, aesthetic crush on a buddy? Nothing!
But the way Peter had described it? The sky was blue, grass was green and Remus was his… kryptonite?
That not only sounded real in a way that Sirius hadn’t been prepared for, but also forced him to accept that maybe the fleeting, appreciative glances he’d sent Remus’ way over the past few months hadn’t been so fleeting, after all.
Maybe he had been staring a little.
Maybe he had been staring a lot .
And now, come to find out, apparently, possibly, Remus had noticed.
Sirius let himself fall backwards with a thud. “God, what am I supposed to do?!”
“Well, I don’t know, but getting off the damp, cold ground might be a solid start. That’s just a suggestion, though.”
Sirius flew up again with lightning speed and spun around. His stomach felt like it had dropped through the ground into the lake.
Remus was standing a little bit away, hair windswept from, well, the wind, and cheeks coloured pink from the bite of the cold. He was huffing slightly; as if he’d run all the way down from the common room, or at the very least walked very quickly.
Sirius felt his breath catch in his throat. “Hi,” he managed.
Remus smiled. His eyes crinkled a little at the sides as he went. “Hi.”
“I just- I went for a walk. I needed to think.”
Remus nodded slowly. “Mm, I see. That’s a high risk activity. It does require very high levels of concentration.” He took a step closer to Sirius, carefully. “I’ll leave you alone if you want?”
“No, you could- It’s okay if you stay. If you want to.”
Remus took another step closer. There were little clouds coming from his mouth every time he exhaled, Sirius noted. Quite cold, then.
“Alright, I’ll stay then.” Remus looked like he was considering the rest of his sentence for a second. “What were you thinking about?”
Sirius looked away, out over the lake. It was still very, despite the slight breeze. Not quite like a mirror, but nearly. “Oh. Nothing important, really.”
“James and Peter seemed to think differently.” Sirius’ breathed in. “They seemed to think it was about something quite important indeed. They were pretty keen for me to go and find out.”
Sirius breathed out. “They don’t know what they’re on about.”
“Don’t they?” There was a slight rustling of leaves; Sirius figured Remus was probably moving again. Away, he hoped. He kept his eyes firmly on the water.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Sirius prayed his voice wouldn’t tremble. It really was cold, he thought desperately. He should’ve brought some gloves with him - his fingertips were going numb, and his nose. “You shouldn’t worry.”
There was something pulling slightly on Sirius’ scarf, he thought. Not hard, just a slight tug; just enough for him to feel it, but not enough to pull him off balance. And something kicked against the front of his boot, lightly, just once. Sirius took another deep breath, and turned to look.
It was just Remus. “Maybe I want to worry about it,” he said, pulling Sirius’ scarf a little more snug around his neck. “Maybe I think it’s something worth worrying about.”
Sirius couldn’t see the little clouds of air coming from Remus’ mouth anymore, but he could feel the light huffs against his face. Like feathers tickling, they felt. Remus wasn’t much taller than him, only an inch or two, but this close it suddenly felt like more. The freckles across Remus’ face that Sirius had thought had faded suddenly looked a lot clearer.
Sirius searched his brain for something to say. He came up with nothing. He could probably count those freckles, if he wanted to. Luckily, Remus spoke up again before he could mention that . “You’ve been staring.”
Kryptonite. Of course. “I’m sorry,” Sirius swallowed down the last invisible cloud of Remus’ breath that had fanned across his face and jumped backwards. “I’ll stop.”
At least Sirius thought he could stop. He wasn’t Icarus; not yet, anyway. He could still turn around; his wings were still intact - he hoped, at least. Peter said the sky was blue and the grass was green, well. Sirius could change that. He would, if it meant keeping Remus close enough that he could catch just a little bit of his warmth. Sirius didn’t need all of it; he wasn’t that selfish. Not when he had so much already and Remus, despite his sun-kissed skin and freckled face, had so little, and was so generous.
Sirius had lost his mind, so what. He’d keep losing it. He’d go insane, bonkers. He’d go batshit crazy , if it meant keeping Remus with him, with them.
Remus hadn’t stepped after him when Sirius jumped back, but he was looking at Sirius with something dark over his face like a shadow. “Can you?”
“Can I what?”
“Stop staring. Can you?”
Sirius hesitated. “I- Yes. I think.”
Remus scoffed, annoyed suddenly. “You think? Can you or can’t you?”
Sirius swept his eyes over Remus and took him in, all of it, the things he knew were there; the golden skin, the dark chocolate hair, starting to get a little too long, the freckles (the freckles ), how tall he was; the round-but-firm shape of his biceps under his sweater. His mouth, just there , and his eyes. Grey, and looking at Sirius like he was- Well. Like he was an idiot.
And maybe Sirius was.
“No.” Remus just stared at him, waiting for him to continue. “I can’t stop.”
Remus stood up a little taller, like someone had just taken something very heavy off his back. “No?”
Sirius studied him carefully. “No,” he said again.
“Okay,” said Remus. He was smiling again, wide and bright and beautiful. “Good.”
Sirius took a careful step forward towards Remus again, a smile threatening to spread over his face as well. “Yeah?”
There was something wonderful in the way Sirius could feel Remus holding his whole life in his hands in that particular moment. Just for a second he truly was falling, freely, shot entirely out of the sky.
Remus’ hand was trembling as he reached it towards Sirius’ face, his fingers featherlight under his chin. His eyes met Sirius’ as he nodded. “Yeah.”
Remus didn’t have to lean in far; Sirius was already halfway there. His mind, entirely lost, but filled with gold; sunshine; freckles. Sirius reached a hand up and put his finger on it.
Kryptonite .